Great! It’s been a while since I made a proper post. There are two reasons for saying that. One is, almost 3 weeks has gone by without anything new here and the last one that was published is basically a FYI post.

Also, one of my friends who do not normally comment on my posts called me up to say he was disappointed by Brand: Gandhi post. His concern was 75% of the post, were comments and quotes from other people/websites and very little own thoughts included. Hmm. Point taken. I tried to convince him saying, my reading time has gone down worryingly and without enough inputs it’s hard to churn out original content. And thanks a lot for the feedback.

Fine then, over the last 1-2 months, I have been interacting with quite a number of people (advertising, marketing professionals primarily) to keep my entrepreneurship spirit alive. I try to get their opinions on few ideas which we are/were planning to implement and to get a better picture about their industry. It does take a lot of time to fix an appointment with one, buddy. But once, you become crazy enough to walk up to a qualified professional and talk about your venture or idea, which he won’t normally expect from a jean, t shirt wearing guy, lot of things change in you. Your confidence shoots up like hell.

Most people ask, “Which company do you represent?” First time, I stuttered a bit, but then, started replying with a, “I represent myself”. Denzel Washington tells this to a drug dealer in American Gangster when he directly goes to a cocaine plantation. I don’t think many people knew that. Haha

To accommodate all these crazy time passing’s, I even had to take PTO’s on Wednesday’s and be at the Secunderabad railway station at noon. No idea what my manager and colleagues thought of these.

Sometimes, I tend to think, am I going the right way? Is this the best possible method to implement a business idea or get more clarity on a new venture, going out and asking your potential clients/customers? No idea.

But one thing I am damn sure is Entrepreneurship is a no-rules game. There is no one way. Different people have found out their own paths out of their character and luck. Some people follow them and it may even be a proven successful model.

Some of my friends are pursuing their Masters in U.S, some here in India, many trying to get into some academic stream to become “someone”. I see my efforts similarly. A stone with my name written on it, thrown into darkness and waiting eagerly for the “ting” sound. (If it hits something)

If it does not work-out, there are easier/proven ways to be “someone”, like cracking CAT. What say?

Life is full of opportunities and changes. It is how you react to those moments defined who you are today… Most of the time, you need to make decisions for the future, but the future unknown, so your emotion plays a big part on influencing other people’s decision… Here is a quote from the book “Life is a pitch” — A pitch does not take place in the library of the mind, it takes place in the theatre of the heart.

If you are not quite clear what you are doing, if your content is not right, doesn’t matter how good your acting skill is, it won’t be a successful pitch… Simply… not persuasive enough…

Preparation takes time, so it needs proper planning… Lots of people only just put down the date for the meeting, but forgot to plan what should happen before and after the meeting… scheduling, scheduling and planning…

Unimportant urgent tasks could blow away our precisous time… We need to find our spaces to give us a clear mind and focus on the real tasks…

Apart from preparation, structure of the pitch is also important. This is how the British army communicate: Say what you’re going to say. Say it. Say it again. Or there is a sonata pattern by Chopin: exposition (the composer setting out his idea), development (the idea is developed and explored) and ends with recapitulation (the idea is re-expresssed).

I was speaking to a friend of mine, a freelance web designer, who told me his dad wanted him to “grow up and look for a real job.”

Needless to say, this irked me enough to want to write about it.

Have you ever had a time when your parents said  something along the lines of “Well that’s good you want to start a business, but eventually you’ll have to find a ‘real’ job?”

As if freelancing isn’t a real career and people haven’t made a living doing it…

Honestly.

But I can’t blame them for their ignorance. Unless they are freelancers or entrepreneurs themselves, in their efforts to teach us about life, they can only see things from their experience, and fail to see the bigger picture because the way they did it is “the only way [they've] seen it work.”

I think Chris Guillebeau(Art of Nonconformity) summed it up nicely in his 279 Days to Overnight Success ebook:

“You don’t have to live your life the way other people expect you to.”

In our case, “other people” would most likely mean our parents, but it still holds true nonetheless.

I’ve also noticed from a couple of my other friends they wanted to avoid growing up and wanted to stay a kid forever, which is normal, but they might have a different idea of growing up.

They might think(as I have thought) that “growing up” means chucking away all the fun and play-time and getting serious with your life by taking up serious things, also known as “responsibilities.”

Gross.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for taking up the serious things, since it allows us to have more control in our lives, but throw away the fun part, and you’ll have a bunch of grade-A workaholics.

My definition of growing up: knowing what you want, and taking both the good and the bad stuff when trying to get it.

Of course you’ll have to know what you want in the first place, but for the most part, I think that’s what it embodies.

Have you ever had a time when you wanted something, but couldn’t accept the bad stuff that came with it? I know I have. So have many of the people on our forum. Come check us out.

Patrick

Doing Business in Brazil.

Bellow, I selected some charts from a Presentation from the Brazilian Central Bank that shows a clear vision of the current evolution of the local economic scenario.

Different from the older posts related with Doing Business in Brazil, I hope that this one is more friendly to have a quick vision of what is happening here.

If you would like to have the Presentation, at the end of this post it is a link, from the Brazilian Central Bank, to make the download.

Link to download the Presentation from the Brazilian Central Bank.

The people who are reading your business plan are likely to have already read hundreds if not thousands before yours, so it has to be written correctly. By correctly I mean outstanding and unique. Many people try to oversimplify the business plan, and even more try to over-complicate it.

The Business plan should be constructed with a maximum of 15 pages.

There are many different ways to outline the business plan within these 15 pages, but the following is one example which should help in the understanding of it’s basic layout.

-This business plan consists of 5 major points excluding a Title page and Table of Contents.-

-Part 1- Executive Summary  1-1.5 pages

The Executive Summary is a broad description of your business and your plans. The most important details are given here, but not descriptive to the point in which it takes up multiple pages. Many examples can be found online elsewhere.

-Part 2- Brief History  0.5 pages

It is here that you write about how you came up with the idea, and include background details.

-Part 3- Product or Innovation Description  1-1.5 pages
The title is self-explanatory, but you cannot forget to keep it summarized, as you do not want to overwhelm the one reading it with an abundance of extraneous facts and details that they do not care about. Mos do not read the entire plan, but instead skim it for all important information, so do not fill it with empty space.

-Part 4- Markets and Competitors  2-3 pages
At this point you include how you can outperform your competitor, or what you bring that you can at least survive in the market with. Included in this section is also the Product Operation, being what you need to carry through, and how you will execute your plan. Start ups are unlikely to compete with price, so you need to develop something else you will compete with. What benefit does your product bring to customers?

-Part 5- Management and It’s Objective  2 pages
This is where you include something similar to- “We would like ______. We will give a return of ______. at __(time)__ and will have achieved_______”

This part should explain the sales and revenue forecast, the profit and loss forecast, and the general structure of the business management as well, but most importantly the capital spending plan which is all summarized with the above example, but that does not serve enough information alone.

-Additional Information to be included-

• Risk-How will your company survive after market saturation, once most people have already bought your product? What other challenges will you face. (There are always challenges and risks.)

• Target Audience- Where will you begin? Start ups are not created as international corporations, so where will you begin geographically, and also demographically, what is your target audience?

• Goal- What goal do you have for the company after a certain time period?

• Future Trends- What is the future forecast for your product/company and the future trends that you predict will affect your market

Your business plan MUST be:

• Realistic
• Entertaining/Not boring
• Different/Unique
• Understandable

Just this week I visited ATEC (Aachen Technology and Entrepreneurship Conference) with distinguished members of Momentum Maastricht. The event took place at Schloss Rahe, which was a great choice for this event. The Maastricht delegation was especially invited by the organizing team of AC.E as part of a cooperation of the ATEC and the Maastricht Week of Entrepreneurship.

The conference offered many workshops, lectures, presentations, and opportunities to network. A participant could chose between three tracks, namely Mobile Technologies, Automotive, and Energy. I chose the mobile track and had the opportunity to hear and get to know a very interesting speaker and personality, Prof. Dr. Jan Borchers. His presentation about usability and how the topic should be approached by companies, especially engineers, was funny and very well structured. He gave great examples of Dos and Don’ts when designing a new product. His presentation is available at his departments website.

The Mobile Track

Other speakers of this mobile track included a representative from Metro AG, who showed a new concept that Metro wants to implement in their stores which makes the consumer’s cellphone center of the focus. With an everyday mobile phone customers will be able to scan their merchandise and use a quick check out. In essence a system that Albert Heijn uses in its stores but instead of the “Albert gun” the cellphone will do the job.

Another presentation was given by a representative of business consulting firm McKinsey & Co. about mobile trends – yes great consultant charts that left no doubt that the proper resources like Gartner, Datamonitor, etc. were harvested in countless hours of all-nighters… To give some credit, it was very informative though if you spoke consulting.

The fourth speaker was an entrepreneur (the first and only one in this track) who presented the history of his chip manufacturing business and had the great ability to convey some entrepreneurial spirit to the group. He shared his experience and gave some great advice on how to get started and how to fight the fear of going on “alone” if you are a non-business student. His presentation had among all the highest perceived value since it was as real-life as it could get and very personal.

The interesting thing about the conference was the schedule. The morning kicked off with the workshops without one real word of welcome (we were greeted very nicely though) and only after lunch the opening ceremony began. This had an up and down side. The good thing was that you started off immediately after you arrived but the downside was that without the opening ceremony in the morning the feeling of a united conference start kind of got lost. The location and the students organizing the event did everything they could to be very hospitable but to me a conference should start with everybody and should end at some point with everybody. Maybe this is just a matter of habit, nevertheless, quite noteworthy.

StartUp MeetUp

In the morning I participated in the StartUp MeetUp session which brought together four founders and their start-up story. Here is my twitter feed from that session to give you an impression of what was said:

Just heard a presentation of Felix from #conangel cool iphone app for conventions and fairs – def. bright future, great job #atec09

Just checked out the iphone app from @conangel after hearing a pres from founder Felix. Awesome tool that every event should use!#atec2009

Joerg Meyer of EUtech biz advice: have fun at work, watch for quality, watch your liquidity, choose your own project, think longterm #atec09

Claus Overbeck from RedTeam Pentesting talking about his biz: playing the bad guys (hacking) and getting payed for it – awesome!#atec2009

Sven Wilhelm from #collectiveiq: you dont have to be an IT guy to run an IT company, find great support, think about your biz model#atec2009

The AC.E Invitation

The organization of the whole event was remarkably well done. The subscription online was easy and quick and the day itself was perfectly executed. At this point I want to thanks all the people over at AC.E – who invited us – to make this such a special, meaningful, and informative day.

The Highlight

The highlight of the day was probably the speech done by Microsoft Germany CEO Achim Berg, who presented some of the latest Microsoft brew, which will hit the markets very soon. The focus of their R&D seems to go further into the direction of artificial intelligence and cognitive learning. He showed some videos and figures which paint an interesting future.

Here’s the ninth notable characteristic of our ten must-have traits for successful  entrepreneurs: they need to be willing and able to sell .

Successful entrepreneurs are able to inspire and lead others by sharing their enthusiasm and vision.  They have the willingness – and the ability – to not only sell the strategic vision behind the business, but also to effectively sell the company’s products or services.  They’re able to describe their compelling value proposition to their target customers, and do it so convincingly that those customers enthusiastically buy!  

One of the deadly sins that founders often commit is to believe that they don’t have the personality for sales, that it’s not something they’d enjoy or be good at, and that they’re therefore better off hiring a professional sales staff and immediately delegating the sales process to others.   By so doing, these entrepreneurs miss their single greatest opportunity to truly understand their customers — through face-to-face contact during initial product launch and scale-up — and isolate themselves from crucial first-hand market knowledge. 

Indeed, true entrepreneurs are always selling…  It’s something that cannot be delegated!  The company founder or founders perpetually and passionately selling the company’s vision to prospective employees, customers, suppliers, partners, market influencers, investors, and so on.  There should never be a day that goes by in an entrepreneur’s life when she or he is not out there selling the vision.

As one of my favorite fellow entrepreneurs likes to say, “A bad day in the field – in front of customers – is better than 5 good days in the office.”  Lose your inhibitions and get out in front of your customers.  Sell the company’s vision, listen to what the customers have to say, and learn how to sell your products in such a way that you’re addressing customer needs.  Only then do you have the wisdom to guide your marketing and sales team.

Like many Canadians, I want to get pay a more reasonable price and get better mobile services. I was hoping WINDmobile would have been launched by now and I will soon be able leave my current provider.

So it was very unfortunate that CRTC threw a curve ball in its decision. But I am determined and I have add WINDmobile to my Christmas/New Year wish list. I hope if enough Canadians speak out and demand mobile competitors like WINDmobile be allowed to compete in Canada, then we can soon have some decent prices and services in Canada. (Note to the Doctor Who fans out there: Remember what Martha Jones did here to defeat the monster? There is hope.

I agree with some of the things WINDmobile CEO Ken Campbell said in his post, “No Choice for Canadians This Christmas“,

“Though many Canadians are frustrated in their own experiences with mobile service providers, they don’t understand the scope of the the issues at hand.

For example, did you know that wireless consumers in this country deal with:

Higher prices: Due to lack of competition and real alternatives, Canadians pay an average of 60% more for mobile wireless services than Americans according to the Telecommunications Policy Review Panel.

Staggering complaints: The Better Business Bureau released its list of top ten consumer complaint calls. Cell phone companies tops that list – soaring above car dealers, movers and even utilities. Clearly Canadian consumers aren’t being treated as they should be and they’re not happy about it.

Among the weakest in the world: Canada’s wireless industry is one of the weakest in the developing world. Merrill Lynch puts Canadian wireless penetration at 65 per cent, last among 22 developed countries (below Tunisia and Iraq). The International telecommunications Union (ITU) has tracked Canada’s decline from 35th in 1998 to 128th in 2008 – far behind many underdeveloped nations.

Oligopoly: The Canadian wireless market is dominated by three very large, very profitable players – Telus, Rogers and Bell. This is not a ‘hypercompetitive market’ as they would have you believe. WIND Mobile, is the only new entrant that offers a truly national wireless alternative.”

Check out their print advertisement.

P.S. I am a fan of WINDmobile, but I will be less than honest if I don’t mention that I actually agree with the CRTC’s analysis when it made its decision (see further comments here) that Globalive and WINDmobile are foreign controlled. I just think it is time that our telecom laws are updated to remove the foreign ownership restriction. I don’t usually like the idea of government overruling quasi-judicial bodies’ decisions, but I will make an exception here.

Lets give Canada some needed competitions in the mobile industry by exempting WINDmobile, and lets fix the telecom laws next.

Oh, Google Wave.

It’s a new era of collaboration, workflow 2.0, it’s changed my life and it will make your life wonderful. *

I have 7 invites left, so send me a message with your Google Email, and first come first served!

(* none of this is true).

Olá!

As seguintes categorias foram abertas:

• Energia
• Economia
• Ciência e Tecnologia
• Entrepreneurship
• Inovação
• Mercados de Capitais
• Livros, Música e Arte

Notem que existem sub-categorias pelo que estas que referi são as categorias “mãe”.

Criem novas categorias e sub-categorias sempre que acharem necessário!

Até já,

Hi everyone! Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving with plenty of food and fun. Maybe some of you are off today to find some great deals, while others are just looking to relax a bit. Whatever you’re doing, I’m glad you came by to check the blog and I thought I’d share my Thanksgiving experiences in London with you.

Unfortunately as you can probably guess, Britain does not have off for Thanksgiving. In fact, its one of the busiest times of year at school because everyone’s trying to fit everything in before the end of the term in two weeks. Lucky for me I had most of my school work madness the two weeks leading up to this one, so I had relatively little homework to worry about. That being said, I still had one lecture yesterday which I contemplated skipping. I ended up going but I may as well have stayed home because my mind was definitely elsewhere the whole time.

Afterwards, I went to a start-up conference in west London to find speakers and sponsors for the LSE Entrepreneurs Society’s EPIC competition (more on this in a later post). It was actually really neat to see all these start-ups and companies providing support services for them at this event, as well as some (apparently pretty famous) guest speakers. The amount of networking going on was incredible. Although it may not be Silicon Valley or even Cambridge, the entrepreneurship scene here is definitely robust. It was a good experience, but I was getting tired and hungry.

BC was nice enough to hold a Thanksgiving dinner for all of us in London. The food selection was interesting, if not a little unconventional. The buffet included pizza, french fries, wings, nachos, and yes turkey sandwiches. Not exactly a whole turkey with stuffing and all, but I was able to get an incredibly filling meal amongst friends. This helped make up for the absence of home and family.

Afterwards, the LSE campus bar, the 3 Tuns, showed the Cowboys-Raiders game. I have to say it wasn’t the most exciting or interesting game in the world but it was still nice to have that aspect of the tradition on Thanksgiving. Overall a good day with some reminders of home as well as some distinctly London features. I’m incredibly grateful that I can even be writing this blog post, that I’ll be coming home for the holidays in 2 weeks, and that I get another 6 months of this incredible city in 2010. I could not ask for more.

(Okay maybe a summer internship would be nice)

“A cobbler’s children never have shoes,” a co-worker told me after we visited a healthy, thriving small business to provide consulting services. We met with the CEO, a talented entrepreneur who had built her business from one person into twenty in just under ten years. After two days of downtime, desperate to see her systems up and running and her client happy, she readily agreed to pay external bill rates for our repairing a critical part of their infrastructure. Yet, despite the obvious success of the business, the network equipment was nearly a decade old, all of the servers were used or refurbished and the employee’s desktop computers were more than two generations obsolete. “This was more than a case of the cobbler’s children being the last helped by the cobbler,” I thought. But, if not this, then why?

I recalled a day in economics class over decade before, when I learned about the Cobb-Douglas function (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobb%E2%80%93Douglas), which states that productivity is a function of capital equipment, labor and technology. In short, Cobb-Douglas says that an increased investment in technology or capital equipment (machinery, tools) increases the productivity of your employees (laborers). This seemed obvious, so I tucked it away in my mind as a good example of conventional wisdom transformed in to a simple equation.

During my years consulting, I’ve seen Cobb-Douglas at work numerous times – at a large computer manufacturer where my team deployed over $1 million in computer hardware for collaboration for their 250,000 employees; at a global heavy manufacturer who built out identical server farms for their plants; at a top-10 financial institution where a dot-0 software upgrade (version 2.0, version 3.0, etc.) triggered the purchase of entirely new corresponding hardware. In most cases, we prepared business cases that showed (1) there were sizable productivity gains through the purchase and (2) the cost of replacing hardware during a corresponding software upgrade was far lower than waiting a year or two when the hardware was seeing high failure rates and affecting customers or workers.

I’ve also seen Cobb-Douglas ignored by otherwise-successful entrepreneurs. While this may seem surprising to some, if you understand the mindset of the entrepreneur, then you’ll understand why. You’ll also understand why this is not good policy for a thriving small business.

For many entrepreneurs, the key to initial success lies in boot-strapping – finding creative ways to deliver for customers despite the lack of resources necessary to get the job done. In most cases, small business owners build their business from the ground up by repeatedly stretching human resources to make up for the lack of capital investment or technology, rewarding these employees with equity or large delivery bonuses in exchange for working lots of overtime. As time passes, the entrepreneur equates scarcity and heavy workloads with success, and a pattern that ignores Cobb-Douglas is engrained.

All is well until the business grows, resource scarcity is no longer necessary and the rewards for burning the midnight oil are no longer available. The business has entered its teen years and is in need of some major infrastructure investments, but the entrepreneurial leader has trouble making the investment. Too many years of boot-strapping have made it difficult to imagine making a sizable, long term investment in technology or productive equipment. It’s safer, the thinking goes, to keep doing what made you successful – boot-strapping.

Yet the business has changed and the keys to past success are not the keys to future success. Businesses may start by successfully bootstrapping, but they grow by improving product quality, normalizing operations and building brand, all of which require substantial investment in technology, people and resources. Few entrepreneur’s recognize this shift occurring, so their business suffers “growing pains” until leadership transitions to someone else.  Dr. Rudy Lamone, a now-retired professor of Entrepreneurial Studies and former dean of the University of Maryland RH Smith School of Business, echoed the observation that entrepreneurs are often replaced once they’ve grown a business past a dozen employees, primarily because the behaviors that led to past successes are now detrimental to the business.

As a result, it’s not uncommon to encounter a small thriving business that uses ten-year-old computer hardware and six-year-old desktops for seemingly inexplicable reasons.  The cobbler’s children have no shoes, but not for lack of leather and nails.

What has been the impact?

1. One entrepreneur lost their largest client by failing to buy and implement a defect tracking system capable of handling a dozen developers and QA resources. The software was delivered, but it was so defect-ridden that the client’s employees could hardly use it.
2. Another entrepreneur lost two key developers who grew tired of developing on old desktops and outdated software.  When the phone call came from a recruiter to work for a business that provided new equipment and regular training, they jumped ship, creating a one month backlog of development work in their wake.
3. A third entrepreneur suffered a one week outage of their production system because they failed to stock a redundant firewall for their network.  The pricey firewall, a $5000 unit, had a one week lead time for replacement.  The cost was $80,000 in revenue and breach-of-contract complaints from nearly every client.
4. A fourth entrepreneur, mentioned at the beginning of this blog, suffered a three-day outage, but was able to avoid a breach of service level agreements by holding the network together for two more months, then upgrading the infrastructure after the contract was renewed.

The effects of tacking care of the cobbler’s children are evident to me, but they’re still anecdotal.  So, I’m asking small business owners and entrepreneurs – when your business is thriving, do you hesitate to make long-term investments in infrastructure? If so, why? If not, what criteria do you use to make the buying decision?

See a nice lady walking through the men’s dressing room. You can see some suprised faces

Begitulah saya menyebutnya..kutukan (curse) kalau dalam dongeng atau cerita adalah sesuatu yang menimpa seseorang dan baru akan hilang jika ada syarat tertentu telah terpenuhi. Nah, kalau dalam kasus saya sebenarnya bukanlah benar-benar sebuah kutukan seperti dalam dongeng, hanya saja ini untuk memudahkan penjelasan dalam tulisan ini.

Kutukan itu seolah-olah berbunyi demikian, “saya sulit menjadi entrepreneur karena saya adalah keturunan pedagang..!” Lho, kok bisa? begitulah reaksi spontan dari orang yang mendengarnya. Ceritanya berawal dari ibu saya yang kebetulan menjadi anak yatim sejak kecil. Beliau ditinggal kakek saya ketika masih kanak-kanak dengan 6 (enam) orang saudara yang juga kesemuanya masih kecil. Untuk mencukupi kebutuhan hidup mereka sekeluarga, mbah putri saya terpaksa menjual tanah dan sawah yang dimiliki sedikit-demi sedikit. Bahkan ketika tanah sudah habis, tak jarang perabot baik yang ada di rumah maupun menempel pada bagian-bagian rumah juga dilego demi sesuap nasi.

Karena semakin terdesak kebutuhan itu, anak-anak yang masih kecil tersebut juga turut membanting tulang ikut bekerja pada orang lain di sawah – karena kebetulan berada di kampung – dan lapangan kerja yang ada hanyalah di sawah. Selain itu mbah putri mulai mencoba-coba untuk berdagang ke pasar. Dagang apa saja, mulai dari dedak (katul) sampai berjualan ayam-pun pernah dilakoninya. Cuma, ini keyakinan mereka semua pada saat itu – termasuk ibu saya bahkan sampai sekarang – bahwa mbah putri orang yang tidak tegaan alias rasa belas-kasihan-nya terlalu besar sebagai seorang pedagang.

Inilah yang menjadi penyebab ketidaksuksesan beliau dalam berdagang atau berwirausaha tersebut. Pernah, suatu ketika – seperti pentuturan ibu dan budhe saya (ibu adalah anak ketiga dari 7 bersaudara) – mbah putri pergi ke pasar untuk berjualan katul. Karena dagangan habis, pulanglah mbah putri dengan membawa berbagai macam kebutuhan pokok dan jajanan untuk anak-anaknya dari uang hasil penjualan dagangan tersebut.

Ketika melewati rumah tetangga, beliau melihat seorang anak kecil yang menangis karena kelaparan – beliau mampir dan akhirnya memberikan sebagian bawaannya untuk anak tersebut – beliau tidak tega melihatnya. Selanjutnya dalam perjalanan pulang selanjutnya, beliau melewati rumah tetangga yang lain yang juga katanya masih saudara – hal ini sangat wajar karena mbah putri adalah keturunan asli di kampung tersebut, sehingga hampir semua penduduk desa “katanya” adalah saudara – beliau bertemu orang yang sakit dan lagi-lagi merasa iba sehingga meninggalkan barang bawaannya di situ. Akhirnya beliau sampai di rumah dengan tangan yang kosong – padahal sedang ditunggu oleh anak-anaknya sendiri yang juga kelaparan.

Itulah pangkal cerita dari “kutukan” saya di awal tulisan ini. Sebagai cucunya, menurut ibu – yang melahirkan dan membesarkan saya tersebut – saya dianggap menjadi “pewaris sah” sifat mbah putri tersebut di atas. Sehingga ibu menganggap saya tidak bisa untuk menjadi seorang pedagang (wirausahawan) karena alasan tersebut. Padahal ibu dan bapak saya adalah seorang pedagang yang cukup sukses untuk ukuran di kampung kami – tetapi menurut beliau seharusnya bisa lebih jika kedua orang tua saya tegelan (tidak punya rasa iba). Dan sejak SD (Sekolah Dasar) saya sudah terlibat dalam perdagangan dalam rangka membantu kedua orang tua saya tersebut. Namun ketika beranjak dewasa, ibu lebih suka dan berharap saya menjadi pegawai, guru atau dosen dan pekerjaan intelektual lainnya. Karena menurut mereka berdagang bagi mereka adalah “keterpaksaan” karena kurangnya pendidikan (ibu saya cuma sekolah sampai SMEP – itupun tidak tamat) dan bisnis dianggap sebagai dunia yang kejam serta profesi yang kurang terhormat. Terlebih saya adalah seorang sarjana ekonomi, yang lebih pantas untuk bekerja di belakang meja dengan pakaian rapi dan bersih – atau istilah mudahnya perlente.

Sekarang saya bukan lagi anak-anak yang tinggal bersama mereka, tetapi sudah menjadi kepala keluarga dengan dua orang anak. Dan sebagian cita-cita ibu sudah saya penuhi. Saya mengajar sebagai guru dan dosen, pernah juga bekerja sebagai pegawai di kampus swasta dengan berbagai jabatan yang menurut orang-orang dianggap terhormat. Meskipun pada akhirnya saya memilih keluar dan bertekad untuk berwirausaha, namun keinginan untuk tidak membantah kemauan orang tua terlalu besar untuk membuat saya “berani” meninggalkan semua dunia profesional dan menekuni wirausaha sepenuhnya.

Akhirnya saya memilih menjadi seorang Self Employee (SE) – demikian menurut istilah Robet T. Kiyosaki dalam Cash Flow Quadran-nya.  Saya menjadi seorang trainer dan konsultan memanfaatkan keahlian yang saya miliki sebagai seorang sarjana ekonomi jurusan akuntansi – dan kebetulan juga pernah bekerja di KAP (Kantor Akuntan Publik).  Selain tentu saja karena saya merasa memiliki kepedulian dengan dunia pendidikan dan pengembangan SDM (Sumber Daya Manusia). Aktifitas ini telah berjalan kurang lebih 3 (tiga) tahun dan sebenarnya cukup sukses – tapi selama itu pula saya selalu berusaha untuk naik kelas – alias ingin menjadi Business Owner (BO).

Nah, pada titik itulah saya “dianggap” gagal (meski saya tetap kekeuh tidak mau mengakuinya…!?) oleh semua orang – terlebih keluarga terdekat saya – dan kembali ini menjadi bukti kutukan di atas. Karena semua inisiasi bisnis saya gagal dan biang keladinya menurut mereka adalah sifat mudah iba yang melekat pada diri saya. Mereka menganggap saya adalah anak baik (good boy) dan sudah selayaknya bersyukur dengan apa yang saya miliki tersebut, dan tidak usah neko-neko untuk menginisiasi berbagai macam ide bisnis yang menurut mereka harus menjadi makhluk yang kejam dan mengesampingkan kemanusiaan jika ingin berhasil. Karena itulah ibu tetap bersikukuh, saya diminta tetap bekerja sebagai profesional dan lebih memikirkan keluarga daripada memikirkan hal-hal yang menurut mereka tidak membumi (realistis) tersebut. Atau, jika ingin menjadi wirausaha lebih baik pulang ke kampung halaman dan meneruskan usaha orang tua. Ini dianggap lebih realistis karena tinggal meneruskan warisan mereka saja – dibandingkan harus merintis sendiri dari awal.

Akhirnya, saya berkesimpulan bahwa memang orang-orang yang sejaman dengan ibu saya masih memiliki pandangan bahwa bisnis dan perdagangan atau dunia wirausaha itu kotor, kejam dan terkadang tidak manusiawi. Itulah yang disebut oleh Hermawan Kartajaya sebagai era polarisasi dalam bisnis – yaitu betul-betul memisahkan bisnis dan dan sosial kemanusiaan, atau urusan dunia dan akhirat.

Dan bahkan bukan hanya mereka-mereka yang sejaman dengan ibu saya – tetapi yang masih muda sekalipun – yang notabene baru memulai usaha saat inipun masih banyak yang memiliki pandangan semacam itu. Meski sudah banyak pula yang mulai masuk ke era kedua, yaitu era balancing, yaitu ketika orang menyadari bahwa cara berbisnisnya kotor dan mereka mulai membersihkan dengan cara-cara ber-amal atau menyumbang untuk keperluan kemanusiaan. Atau kalau dalam korporasi sekarang dikenal dengan konsep CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) atau tanggung jawab sosial perusahaan.

Padahal sudah saatnya kita memasuki era ketiga yaitu, era konvergensi – dimana bisnis dan sosial seharusnya menjadi satu kesatuan yang bisa saling melengkapi dan bukan sebaliknya justru saling bertentangan dan dipertentangkan – hal ini terbukti dengan krisis ekonomi yang berkepanjangan dan sulit diatasi dengan berbagai skema dan sistem yang masih men-dikotomikan ekonomi dan sosial.

Tulisan ini tidak dimaksudkan untuk menentang pendapat itu, meski ibu saya tidak mengenal internet dan tidak akan membaca tulisan ini. Tetapi lebih pada keyakinan saya pribadi bahwa ketika kita secara frontal menentang pendapat orang lain – bukan keberhasilan yang kita dapat – melainkan perlawanan yang semakin kuat. Dengan demikian saya tidak akan memaksakan pandangan saya soal konsep kewirausahaan (yang ideal menurut saya) diatas kepada para pembaca sekalian (termasuk pada ibu saya sendiri), namun semoga sepenggal cerita saya tersebut akan membuka mata dan wacana – dan yang lebih penting adalah menguatkan keyakinan saya pribadi bahwa kegagalan-kegagalan yang saya alami bukanlah karena keyakinan saya yang keliru – tetapi karena saya belum mampu mengatasi berbagai kendala yang muncul dalam dunia yang tidak ideal ini.

Ini hanya soal waktu untuk membuktikan kepada orang-orang yang saya cintai serta tanah air, negara dan bangsa ini bahwa saya mencintai mereka dan sedang berusaha memberikan yang terbaik untuk mereka. Syaratnya saya harus mampu menghilangkan kutukan tersebut dengan lebih banyak belajar, lebih sabar dan lebih dekat dengan Sang Pencipta. Dan bukan menyalahkan orang lain atau kondisi (yang biasanya lebih mudah) atau mengikuti keyakinan orang lain yang tidak sejalan dengan nilai-nilai yang saya yakini. Karena jika demikian, saya yakin justru akan mengalami kegagalan yang sesungguhnya.

Selamat datang di era konvergensi…!

Richard Branson’s top 20 Virgin inspirational insights

Richard Branson has always had the reputation for doing things differently, which has reflected in Virgin companies the world over. He has also sprinkled his views on business and life into decades of interviews, books and launches. While most people are familiar with his rallying cry of “screw it, let’s do it”, there are plenty more helpful hints from the smiley man with the beard. Here are our top 20…

via Richard Branson’s top 20 Virgin inspirational insights – Industry Updates – Entrepreneur – Virgin.

With today being Thanksgiving in the United States, it makes sense to talk about giving thanks in your company. Giving thanks, and celebrating, go together and should be part of the company rhythm. Here’s what we do to give thanks and celebrate:

• Whenever we close a deal with a new customer, we ring our gong at 5pm that same day and everyone claps
• Every Friday we have a catered lunch for the entire office to spend time together and socialize
• We use an eCrowds Idea Exchange to nominate a hero of the month, voted on by entire team, and then award the winner a $100 bill at our monthly all hands meeting

I recommend every company give thanks and celebrate on a regular basis.

I had a function in the Docklands precinct of Melbourne last night. Lot’s of nice waterfront restaurants, popular brand retailers and it’s aesthetically pleasing… yet it is a veritable ghost town. I asked some of the retailers about it and they all told me the same thing…. No one comes here, it’s always quiet.

Sure new precincts take some time to build, but it’s nigh on ten years now and the Docklands still feels like a soulless wind tunnel. Interestingly everyone agrees it will be a cool place, it just isn’t yet.

The Melbourne City Council knows Docklands ain’t what it should be. In order to attract traffic they came up with two of the worst ideas in they’ve had in some time:

1. The Souther Star Observation Wheel – at a cost of $40 million+.

Which is now the wheel of broken dreams and didn’t seem to like hot weather.

2. Free Rent to retailer Costco – A little known fact is that USA retail Costco was wooed to Docklands by Government authorities with the quiet gift of free rent for 3 years. Hoping that would generate foot traffic for the suffering region.

* An equally terrible idea as people drive in from the outer suburbs fill their car boot up with 100 rolls of toilet paper and drive home.

Here’s a simple idea for the Docklands authorities to get people to their empty party:

Free Parking

Yep, sometimes the simplest innovations are the best. People love free parking. …. “Let’s just go to docklands, there is plenty of parking and it’s free” – decision made, party gets started. A simple redirection of the $40 million wheel could have paid for parking for 10 years. It would make Docklands an obvious choice among people wanting food, entertainment and shopping therapy. But in classic government fashion they opted for complex solutions where a simple one existed.

Lesson? Startups ought look for the simple solution first.

Alan Markovitz owns a new Penthouse Club in Philadelphia, and even spent 5 million dollars just for adornments. He also revolutionized the compensation model that instead of paying his models, they pay him a fixed fee nightly and get to keep everything extra they made.

He has the following rules to guide him:

• Wisely choose your business partners.
• Never stand still – keep innovating, upgrading, inventing, expanding…
• “If you sleep with your help, you might need help.”
• Believe that you can manage through any crisis.
• Look for extra ways to turn the buck.
• Experiment and try new ideas.

Here’s a link to the original write-up in CNBC.

About a year or so ago, I left a perfectly good-paying  job with great benefits at a good company to do “something else”. What that something else was – I did not know, but I felt like a dog straining at the end of an unyielding master’s leash, needing to break free and run. Corporate culture? Not for me – classic square peg in a round hole. This blog is the story of the dog who ran away to become an entrepreneur, the “dream” and the lessons I’m learning along the way. 

Only rule here: post often, but keep ‘em short - around 100 words a day.

It was in the month of March 2009, when one of my friends, a rare one in the world of education, Tushar Tamhane, shared this video in our education conference ‘PRAVAAL’, I was taken aback to see the ingenuity of a young Indian, who from his school days has been thinking differently. Inspite of our education system, Pranav Mistry a boy born and brought up in Gujarat, managed to be steadfast in his thoughts and went on to give shape to his imagination is a tribute in itself to his personal vision and passion.

The SIXTH SENSE TED video that I saw then was this. Which was presented by his boss at MIT media labs, Pattie Maes.

This november when Pranav made the presentation at TED India in Mysore, I realized his Vision of reaching out this SIXTH SENSE to the masses.

As he shares, the impact of merging the physical and digital world can be enormous. Human beings so passionate about expressions and actions can move beyond the confines of desks, break the barriers of literacy. It will be a function of imagination and nothing else. Imagine what it can do to a farmer in any corner of the world, who can read his mother tongue, or can recognize symbols, by just the touch of his fingures, he would know about the weather, pricing, the moisture, the soil fertility etc. How a child can explore the world with touch and feel. How an extension of this technology can enable a physically challenged person to perform extraordinary things just with his thoughts….

I am still thinking about the wildest of the things I can extend this technology to and how to put this to use. I am certainly looking for the evolution of this over the next decade. The raise and raise of popularity of the internet and technology evolution in the last decade has added so much to our life, I am wondering what the world will be in 2020 with technologies like SIXTH SENSE around.

Jai Ho !

sreeni@iwsb.in

Last night the jury for the ESADE Entrepreneurship Club Elevator Pitch Contest, comprising of professors and VCs, has chosen the following ten projects from 26 applicants. These ten projects will give a 3min pitch on Monday, 31st of November 2009, at 6.30pm at the ESADE Forum.

1. Ad deliverers - Eduard Cansado
2. AFADS - AbdelAziz
3. Aircraft on Ground - Pedro Martinho
4. Jet A Suits - Marc Winter
5. Cell Tag - Eric King
6. Houseactioneer – Alfredo Paul
7. Microfinance for Profit - Chinmoy
8. New in Town - Ivaylo Vasilev
9. Park IT - Joan Muni
10. Mobile Payment System - Tobias Caldeweyher (myself)

We will be closely watched by students, alumnis, VC’s, professors, IESE and local entrepreneurs. If things turn out well a project might be picked up by an investor and the business takes off. This provides a great opportunity and it will definitely be a great event. The event will be followed by a networking cocktail for all the participants. The event costs 12€.